05.26.2013 07:55 AM

In Sunday’s Sun: for the love God, just go

Gone?

In candid moments, and when no microphones are in the vicinity, progressive political operatives will admit they want to keep Rob Ford around.

They don’t want him gone, at all.

Liberal and New Democrat strategists know the truth: Toronto’s conservative mayor is the political gift that keeps on giving. He is the best thing to happen to progressive political fortunes in ages. Municipally, provincially, even federally — Rob Ford is a human shrapnel machine. He is radioactive. He is kryptonite. And, by simply maintaining a pulse, he gives hope to NDP and Grit campaigns in Toronto and beyond.

His political rap sheet tells why.

February 1999: Arrested in Florida for drunk driving and drug possession; pleaded no contest on the former charge; denies it during the 2010 Toronto mayoralty race, until presented with the evidence by the Toronto Sun.

April 2006: Security guards physically remove a drunken Ford from a Toronto Maple Leafs game; an out-of-town couple had asked him to be quiet, and Ford had slurred something about the woman wanting to be “raped and shot.”

March 2008: Ford is charged with assaulting his wife and uttering a death threat. The charges are abruptly dropped, in court, due to “inconsistencies” in his wife’s account.

June 2010: Ford is taped offering to buy a man “hillbilly heroin,” the powerful narcotic OxyContin. On the tape, he says he doesn’t know any dealers, but “I’ll f—ing try to find it.”

July 2011: A woman spots Ford on his cellphone while driving; when she reminds him it is a bad idea, he gives her — and her six-year-old daughter — the finger.

December 2011: Ford’s mother-in-law calls police, saying that her son-in-law has been drinking, and is threatening to take his children to the U.S., against his wife’s wishes.

August 2012: Ford is photographed reading papers while driving on a Toronto-area highway.

March 2012, June 2012, February 2013, March 2013: Photos and media reports circulate of Ford being intoxicated in public.

And, this month, this: An American website — and then the Toronto Star — detail seeing a video of Rob Ford, the mayor of North America’s fourth-largest city, allegedly smoking crack cocaine, and calling Justin Trudeau “a fag,” and the boys he coaches high school football “just f—ing minorities.” (That football team fired Ford days later.)

There’s more, a lot more.The slurs against minorities, gays and political opponents. The conflict of interest allegations, and the abuses of power. The appalling lapses in judgment — such as, just this week, permitting his staff to hand out Rob Ford fridge magnets at the funeral of the Toronto Sun’s founder, Peter Worthington.

Through it all, Ford and his repellant brother/enabler, Doug, refuse to accept any responsibility whatsoever. They blame a media conspiracy. They blame “pinkos.” They blame the provincial government. They blame everyone, in fact, who does not accept their retrograde ideology and their reckless ways.

After the extraordinary crack cocaine video surfaced, Ford could have stepped forward, denied the allegations, and offered to take a drug test — like his cabal regularly favour for transit workers or welfare recipients.

Or, he could have said this: “I have a substance abuse problem. For that, I am ashamed. I apologize to my family, my colleagues and the city. I will now step aside so that I can get help.” If he’d done that, I believe he would have been forgiven.

He would’ve been given a second chance. Canadians, after all, are a fair-minded and decent people.

But Rob Ford hasn’t done any of those things. He’s called the crack allegation “ridiculous,” and then gone into hiding.

Whatever his political utility once was — whatever he once did to help elect progressives — Rob Ford has brought shame and ridicule on us all, and he has provided young people with a terrible, terrible example.

For the love of God, then, Rob Ford, go. Just go.

43 Comments

  1. LL says:

    The larger question needs to be asked.

    Rob Ford is the mayor of Toronto because the electorate gave him a plurality of their votes.

    The voters freely elected an incoherent, illiterate, obese trainwreck of a man. It required no thought to buy into simple minded slogans and jingoism.

    Stop letting the voters off the hook for their poor decision. I am of the view Rob Ford should serve out his term and embarrass Toronto everyday. Perhaps then citizens will take their responsibilities seriously and stop blaming everybody but themselves for Rob Ford even being in office.

    • dro says:

      Bingo! There is hopefully a lesson in this for voters to actually pay attention. I’m with you LL. We owe it to ourselves to take responsibility for this one.In Democracies, voters are accountable.

      • George says:

        As Winston Churchill famously said, “The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter.” In retrospect, the election of Ford as Mayor seems to prove the point.

  2. Ms Buttercup says:

    The Globe and Mail has published an extensive examination of the Toronto Ford family’s decades-old connection to illicit drugs. Part of this investigation reveals that Kathy Ford had connections to white supremacist groups including Gary MacFarlane, a founding member of the Canadian chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, as well as the late Wolfgang Droege, perhaps the most notorious white supremacist in Canadian history. Mr. Droege’s numerous criminal endeavors included selling cocaine and marijuana, which led to his death in 2005 when he was killed by an addict. Mr. Droege was incarcerated for much of the 1980s in U.S. prisons, both for drug trafficking and for a plot to overthrow the government of Dominica.

    In fact, there is a long and intensely violent connection between addictive drugs and National Socialist operatives – addiction and totalitarianism go hand in hand. During the National Socialist occupation of Western Europe, an artificial shortage of therapeutic medications was created by halting the usual export of healing drugs to the “inferior” countries; drugs which created passivity, dependence, and lethargy were widely distributed. In Holland, barbiturates were made readily available in drugstores without prescription, a situation against customary Dutch law. Nazi tank crews and other military units were amply supplied with methamphetamine, often in the form of chocolate bars. Infamous mass-murderer Klaus Barbie profited greatly from the cocaine trade and participated in the “cocaine coup” that installed ruthless Bolivian dictator Tejada. There is a global pattern of neo-Nazi groups funding themselves via the drug trade. Three US justice officials who tackled white supremacist prison gangs have been killed; the foundation of these gangs operations is the sale of illegal drugs including cocaine and methamphetamine.

    The lawless and violent nature of the drug and/or neo-Nazi underworld marred the Ford’s lives. Kathy Ford’s lover Michael Kiklas was fatally shot by her ex-husband, a drug addict named Ennio Stirpe. Ms Ford was shot in the face at another violent episode. Randy Ford was charged with assault causing bodily harm and forcible confinement.

    Sadly, the use of illegal drugs is not confined to the political landscape of Toronto. The Andy Warhol Diaries state:

    “And Consuelo Crespi whose daughter Pilar is married to a Columbian, Echavarria, was also at Diana’s. Tom knew all about Columbia, so I just don’t know about him. He said Pilar’s husband was the biggest smuggler in Columbia, but what does that mean he smuggles? For sure, cocaine. Or money? Echavarria owns an airline there, a small one. We were talking about plane crashes and Tom was telling about his – the one that wrecked his hand that he wears the glove on, and Consuelo said, “If you crashed in an airplane, you were probably in Columbia right?” And he was. Tom doesn’t seem to take coke too much but I think he was missing Margaret (Trudeau) so he was snorting some. He’s so free with it, it’s not like a dealer, he gives it away like it’s candy. ”

    The CBC’s docudrama showed a globe-trotting young Trudeau smoking opium Chinese style, and Margaret Trudeau was is a self-admitted long time user of cannabis, in addition to her cocaine use. According to public statements by Marc Emery, Justin Trudeau smoked “big daggers” of cannabis “four or five times” with Emery. Mind the Netherlands has classified high-potency cannabis as a “hard” drug; the “it’s just pot” line is not a defense.

    In the historical context of drugs and totalitarianism, the Trudeau’s families staunch defense of the Soviet system, Chairman Mao, and Fidel Castro is disquieting: Communist ideologues and fanatics have long used drugs as a means of bringing unruly peoples into submission and to generate revenue. In the hands of tyrants, this medication into dependency can become extremely dangerous. Mao’s “revolutionary opium war” put 30 000 acres of good land under poppies and produced an estimated 44 000 kg opium worth 2.4 billion fabi or roughly 640 million dollars today. Communist China smuggled and exported vast quantities to her neighbors who consequently were compelled to carry on a constant struggle against opium addiction among their own people. The Chinese combined brainweakening opium addiction with leaflets, radio, whispering campaigns, and so on, to infect the Thai people with their ideology. The Chinese Communist Party of today is well aware of Vancouver’s pro-drug vanguard in “beachhead Vancouver” as it seeks global dominance.

    Communist narcoterrorists, most notably the FARC of Columbia, continually terrorize and drive indigenous people off their traditional jungle areas so coca plants can be grown. At the other end of the supply chain, they partner with sociopathic drug cartels to bring cocaine to the North American market. Over 60 000 Mexicans have been killed in drug battles. North Korea manufactures methamphetamine on a large scale – 30-40% use meth, often in lieu of medicines not available under their command economy.

    We submit that the Trudeaus and Fords of the land are narco-boosters for extremist criminal and terrorist networks and pose the very real and present danger that these political machines could metastasize into a fifth column at the very heart of the Canadian Nation. For this reason we call on the Government of Canada to vigorously intervene and utilize the specialized skills of both the RCMP and CSIS to investigate and assess this threat. We submit that any elected official with present or past connections to the addictive drug trade should be exposed lest Canada descend to become a narco-state.

    • Kaspar Juul says:

      That’s a ridiculous attempt to compare Trudeau to ford via hearsay.

      First rule of a talking point: concise and easy to understand.

      We submit you failed

  3. Reality.Bites says:

    Who is “we” precisely? It’s one thing to post under a screen name when you’re speaking only for yourself. If you’re claiming to represent a group, what group? And if you’re not representing a group, try writing with expressions a bit less hackneyed than “we submit.”

  4. Elizabeth says:

    I’ve noticed on Twitter lately that Justin Trudeau is being dragged into Ford’s issues; under cover of this or that, by either NDP, who are sneakiest – or by CPC.
    I submit that this is an elaborate Tory/NDP attack on Trudeau. First time I’ve seen his mother brought into it as well.

  5. Joe says:

    Doesn’t this media generated nonsense about the Fords remind you of a bitter ex-wife who insists on bringing up every slight real or imagined in her fight with her husband? “The beast 30 years ago yesterday he put his socks in the laundry hamper on top of my bra”! That nasty piece of work, twenty five years ago next January 3 he sneezed in my direction”! He is the worst husband ever! In 1998 he forgot to call me Sexy Mamma before we made love. Hey Toronto it aint mayor Ford that makes you look like chump town.

    • po'd says:

      No it doesn’t. Deeds of the past are often a harbinger of future behaviour. They not only show what a person is capable of doing, but what lengths they would go to in order to achieve their goals in the future.

      • ray says:

        it’s he said she said and whoever has the pictures/proof wins.

        • Cath says:

          Bingo ray! You win.
          “Deeds of the past are often a harbinger of future behavior” – Gimme a break. Guess the children of boomers are screwed beyond belief then right, because boomers were the most indulgent generation ever. Sex, drugs and rock’n roll was the anthem we were raised with. Great lengths of doom and gloom? I think not.

          • po'd says:

            a) This is about the Mayor of Canada’s largest city, and one of the 4 largest in NA. Plus his brother the Councillor who appears be the surrogate mayor

            b) It isn’t about the smoking dope in ones teen years or humping, it’s about current addiction (s) and possibly, activity related to organized illegal drug sales by people from a well off family whose father was a Conservative MPP.

            c) Yes, harbinger of future behaviour, like Carson, Jacobson, Del Mastro, Clement, Porter, Mackay, Big Julie the tulip, Harper and others.

            These behaviours, should not be sloughed off as merely youthful missteps. Often, it’s more of a learning process and they get better at it with experience.

          • partrick says:

            Yes, history is irrelevant – which is why we repeat it endlessly.

        • po'd says:

          Pictures / proof are undoubtedly the knock out blow but, the power of accusation will not be denied. Nor will the weight of circumstantial evidence in the court of public opinion. By virtue of their own well documented behaviour, including videos, the Ford’s encourage even objective people to believe the worst. Another factor that speaks to me is the Globe does not impress me as being a Liberal leaning media operation, and I doubt they would play fast and loose with their reputation.

    • Kaspar Juul says:

      No your comment actually leads the reader to think you may have bigger issues with women more than anything else.

  6. Jerk617 says:

    Anyone else worried for the well-being of the video-holder? Drug-dealer or not, the Fords may (be able to) disappear him. If the video comes out, the police are involved (publicly) and they wouldn’t be able to play favorites for the Fords… whom I wonder if they’ve ever used their influence and power to perhaps shut-down or freak out rival dealers while their ops remained invisiible. All speculation on my part.

  7. Ding Ming-Wong says:

    Dear Warren,

    Please forgive the boldness and bluntness of the following suggestion, but since the fundraising efforts to buy this
    videotape on Crackstarter expires in 37 hours from now, coupled with the fact that it is still $25,000 shy of its $200,000 goal, how about if SFH simply contributes the remaining amount? I know SFH has recorded a song and is planning to
    donate the profits from any sales towards this fund, but can this all be done in the 37 hours which remains?

    SFH should simply donate the remaining $25,000 and we can finally get a hold of this videotape. If Crackstarter fails
    to raise its $200,000 goal, this will embolden Rob and Doug, as well as the Redneck White Trash which dominates
    “Ford Nation”.

    Anyway, just a suggestion…

    http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/rob-ford-crackstarter

    Ding Ming-Wong

    • The Doctor says:

      Isn’t the more pressing issue actually locating the purported vendor of that video? And in any event, the vendor has apparently been assassinated by the Ford Family’s secret assassination squad. That’s the real story here.

    • smelter rat says:

      Heh. You’re new to the music business, aren’t you?

      • Ding Ming-Wong says:

        Indeed I am new to how the music industry works!

        Could Warren or someone else PLEASE tell me how this STH song will be able to raise money for Crackstarter’s purchase of the videotape in question before the fund raising drive ends in just over 30 hours from now?

        Ding Ming-Wong

  8. JH says:

    I hold no brief for Mayor Ford. Howeve I do believe in innocent until proven guilty, as do the majority of Canadians supposedly. It does strike me that despite all the personal and maybe even professional antipathy, at some point in time the press, especially Ford’s accusers, have to step up and prove something.

    • Reality.Bites says:

      Innocent until proven guilty applies to criminal charges.

      Has nothing to do with whether or not we’re obliged to accept the word of a proven habitual liar. We’re not on a jury and we’re not deciding whether he goes to jail.

      It is not believable that the Star reporters and Gawker reporter independently made up the same story

      It is not believable that they’re all mistaken about who was in the video and what he was doing.

      It is not believable that two city hall reporters mistook an impersonator for the mayor.

      It is not believable that the video could be digitally faked.

      ergo, it is not believable that Rob Ford did not smoke crack on camera and utter slurs against Justin Trudeau and Don Bosco students.

      He’s lying. Period. And if you believe him you’re either lying to yourself or lying to us. Or, forgive me for saying, not intelligent enough to follow and understand events.

  9. tf says:

    Recordings…
    This too shall pass.
    There is a tape recording of our Prime Minister offering a sitting MP a $1-million life insurance policy in return for help defeating the minority Liberal government in 2005.
    “A tape recording at the centre of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s $3.5-million defamation suit against the Liberal party was not altered as the prime minister has claimed, a court-ordered analysis of the tape by Harper’s own audio expert has found.” Oct 11, 2008 http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2008/10/10/cadman-tape.html

    Even though Harper was proved in court to be lying, the Canadian public continues to re-elect the Harper government.

    • po'd says:

      A Churchill quote comes to mind. Something about democracy and a brief conversation with the average voter.

      Paraphrasing a quote that has been attributed to Orwell, but wasn’t actually his words; Powerful people sleep well in their beds at night because there are rough men ready to commit crimes to further their interests.

  10. Al in Cranbrook says:

    From the “view from the sidelines” dept. Qualifier: I live in small town BC, where hardly anyone has heard of Rob Ford, and most don’t much care about Toronto…aside, perhaps, from a Leafs’ jersey, I s’pose.

    Watching politics for some 45 years, I’ve never seen anything like this before. The degree of viciousness being waged by (the usual suspects in) the MSM against this guy is unparalleled, over the top beyond description!

    Observation: People tend to gravitate towards an underdog, particularly when the forces aligned against one are those regarded to one degree or another as elitist. Occurs to me in this instance that “martyr” is quickly becoming an appropriate descriptor.

    The headline this morning is Rob Ford, during a radio guest spot, referring to the media as “a bunch of maggots”. I can only imagine how many pretty much giggled with glee in agreement with that shot across the MSM’s bow.

    Peter Foster put up a (IMHO) fantastic column on yesterday’s Financial Post, apparently prompted by a CBC National segment on scandal: http://opinion.financialpost.com/2013/05/24/peter-foster-get-stephen-harper-duffy-affair-has-exposed-a-pandemic-of-harper-derangement-syndrome/

    – “Harpergate, the rickety contraption hastily assembled by a team of the media’s worst handymen, has come off its hinges.

    …What this “affair” has exposed more than anything is a pandemic of Harper Derangement Syndrome, combining lack of proportion with an almost psychopathic desire on the part of the media to “get” a Prime Minister who won’t pander to their self-importance.” –

    (…which didn’t set me to giggling, but more like a spontaneous outburst of hand clapping as I shouted, YES!!!”)

    Observation: The increasing ability of the MSM to quite literally destroy those of whom they don’t happen to (ideologically) approve also is unparalleled, thanks in large part to the immediacy of the Internet.

    As I recently noted here, there’s a growing (and disturbing) vacuum in politics regarding willingness of preeminently qualified people with much to give to public service, I’d offer almost entirely because they see this sort of…you know…basically crap, and they quickly decide to take a pass.

    Which is why, I might also observe, a relative light weight, the likes of whom wouldn’t have stood a snowball’s chance in hell a couple decades ago, such as Justin Trudeau can attain leadership of a prominent national party.

    Observation: It is not irrelevant that both Wallin and Duffy both used to be members of a decidedly Liberal Ottawa press gallery, a left-leaning bunch whom I’m inclined to think clearly have vengeance on their collective minds.

    Last comment: As we’ve just seen yet again here in BC, people are increasingly tuning out the MSM and all their shameless, tedious, mindless, self-indulgent, self-righteous bull****. And very wisely so.

    • Domenico says:

      I am confused. You are saying the media are out to get Rob Ford because they are left wing and he is not? And the same goes for Harper? I suggest you refer to the list of Ford’s escapades Warren put up in this article and ask yourself what left wing bias has to do with any of it. I would also be interested to hear your sources outside of the “MSM”. Hopefully you are not suggesting the National Post is some bastion of unbiased journalism. We are all aware that the Globe and Mail is the national Pravda due to its far left leanings…….

      • Al in Cranbrook says:

        Since the day Ford got elected, the campaign by the left to do him in politically has been relentless. Unprecedented, can’t think of another comparable instance. Borders on the bizarre! He won, convincingly! Let him do his job, there’ll be another election in due time.

        Is he an angel? Hell, no! Are any of them? Not a person born who reaches the age of 40 without a couple skeletons in their closet of one degree of regret or another! If everyone had to pass the sainthood test, there’d be nobody left to elect! What is disturbing as hell is the unbridled lust demonstrated by the MSM, mostly left, to burn someone at the stake of public opinion! Like hyenas on a carcass, once they get started!

        Read Foster’s column! I was flipping channels when I came across the CBC item in question. I had to turn it off ’cause it was so putrid with unabashed anti-conservative bias! This, from a publicly owned broadcaster that sucks up over a billion $$$ each and every year from taxpayers???

        The media takes “plausible denial” to new limits regularly. Carefully couched insinuation wrapped with disclaimers such as “if”, and “anonymous sources” that are virtually impossible to have identified. They literally boast that, either one gives ’em something, or they’ll go ahead and speculate…meaning, make it up. They think it’s their God given right to direct public opinion any damn way they like…and God help those they take a disliking to! Foster is dead on! This PM simply will NOT dance on command for them…unlike so many who came before him. And thus the usual media suspects just cannot fathom this sort of steely independence and disregard for their self-deemed power and importance.

        I call it “tyranny of the media”. It’s their way or else! Screw respect for office! And thus by extension, screw the voting public and their choices, which are only as legitimate as we…the MSM…deem it (ideologically) acceptable.

        Yes, in a democracy they have a valuable role to play. But their definition of that has come to mean has gone waaaaay beyond the pale!

        And the sad, if not utterly destructive, consequence of all this has become rampant apathy, if not outright visceral antipathy for the entire political process from the people it’s meant to serve! IMHO, nobody has more to answer for with respect to declining voter participation than does the MSM itself!

        • tf says:

          Hey Al,

          I’m curious if you spoke out the same way when the mainstream vilified Premier Glen Clark over a deck.

          Did you feel the same outrage then?

          Thanks for considering the many sides of the coin:)

        • Luke says:

          Just to offer an alternative BC perspective, isn’t it conceivable that Rob Ford gets so much bad press because his behaviour warrants it? I am sure you are right that no honest person could say they didn’t do some things wrong in their life, but Rob Ford’s inappropriateness and wrongdoings are so common and so over the top, all the time, especially for a big city mayor, that I really don’t have much sympathy for the unflattering image he deservedly has built for himself in the media. Yes, I say he built it, and deserves it, because his actions are what gives the media their material. Your view mirrors Ford’s own it’s-everbody’s-fault-but-my-own mentality, which is a shamefully self-unaware and lazy worldview for any adult person, let alone the mayor of our largest city.

          The only sympathy I have for Ford is how many horribly unflattering photos their are of him out there. I think they shape in a not-so-subtle way people’s view of him, and certainly not in a good way.

    • Neil says:

      Al, your making a joke right? The MSM has let Harper get away with murder. We have a political party that has clearly at a minimum attempted to steal elections, this is not speculation, this is not innuendo, they have now been found guilty in multiple courts of law of the party or it’s operatives systematicallly flouting election spending laws, deceiving voters and cheating. It is clear by any standard that this PM is not legitimate and that this Conservative party has more in common with the Ba’ath party then with say the old PC and you suggest the media is after them? Seriously? Are you on drugs? This is the most docile media in the western world. Nixon fell for far less then Harpers party has benn CONVICTiED of. Where is the media outrage, no where? This media loves and worships Harper. You clearly have not been paying any attention at all.

      • Al in Cranbrook says:

        Neil, you’d have a very difficult time convincing anyone but those of similar mindset that the MSM is pro-Conservative! Sun News, sure. NP, marginally, depending on whose article you’re reading. The rest, hardly!

        Your memory is a tad selective. Being a Reform/CA/CPC supporter/member since circa ’88, I can assure you that, at the very worst, the Liberals are only on the receiving end of a style of politics on which they wrote the book. (…soldiers, with guns, in our streets? …guns, muzzle flash included, pointed directly at viewers in ads? …racists? …redneck westerners? …greedy Albertans? …yada yada yada?) Payback certainly can be a bitch, eh? Sorry, but I’ve not much sympathy for those whimpering about “them ol’ nasty Conservatives”. The only thing one might convict Harper of is learning his lessons well prior to 2006…and a loooong memory.

        Do individuals, of all political stripes, screw up now and again, be it election spending or whatever? Sure. Think the only one convicted of anything related to the robocall stuff was a Liberal? Do people, in the heat of an election, get overzealous, or even go renegade? No doubt about it! Welcome to the 21st century and modern technology that makes not only great things possible and immediate on grand scales, but bad things as well…much to the delight of hackers everywhere, I’m sure!

        But to suggest some sort of sordid conspiracy at the highest levels??? C’mon! Nobody but an absolute idiot would be that stupid or dangerously reckless! And ALL political leaders go out of their way to make sure they have no absolute idiots anywhere near the helm and controls of the party!

        Right now in the US there’s very serious questions about who knew what when regarding the Benghazi riot/killings, and the head of the IRS has been canned over serious implications involving persecution/harassment of pro-Republican taxpayers. These come on helluva lot closer to the definition of “scandal” than a senator fudging an expense claim via some loophole (and surely not the first and only in the last 50 years to do so, ya think?), now frivolously referred to as a “crisis”. Crisis??? Really??? I could rehash some real scandals from the past here, but I’m sure they’re still fresh enough in many memories. You know?

        (…BTW, is the Ba’ath reference now the new “Nazi”? Just wonderin’.)

        • Neil says:

          Al
          Of course I could never convince a reformer that the media is biased in their favour but it is. To talk about ads that never aired as examples of media bias is kinda odd, the ad never aired and it hurt the Liberals, so why has everyone seen it, cause the “pro Liberal” media played it to death, so much so that everyone is now referrs to it, as you just did as an ad. It was not, the Libs never ran it anywhere.
          In the case of the the “conspiracy” to steal an election, did you not read the recent court decision, what you are saying would not happen is Exactly what the judge says did happen, when you couple it with things like “in and out” a clear attempt to spend more then the legal limit it is clear that the Conservative party views election rules and laws as something to be attempted to get around, you can’t deny that as they have been convicted of it.
          The truth is as an Albertan, there is NO Liberal media anywhere in this province. Nothing, nada, zippo, the media are conservative cheerleaders completly, only a complete idiot would view it as anything other than that.
          The point is still, Nixon resigned over less then Harper’s party has been convicted of and he is the place where the buck stops, I know the Conservatives NEVER take responsibility for anything they do but at some point…..
          and Ba’ath is to avoid Nazi, maybe PRI in Mexico would be better, cause I am not suggesting death squads or anything like that, just a completly corrupt party that controls every aspect of the government.

  11. Domenico says:

    Who thought Torontonians would be so soon nostalgic for the quiet dignity and good governance of Mel Lastman?

  12. Alex says:

    Warren,

    In past posts, while discussing the B.C. election results, you mentioned how the press is engaged in a conversation that the public is tuning out. I have been thinking about this while observing the fight between the Ford brothers and the press. The Ford’s have come out and called journalists a “bunch of maggots.” While I am no supporter of the Fords, I can’t help but wonder how many residents of Toronto (a majority?) would agree with that statement.

    Until the press comes up with hard proof of their drug allegations, all we have to go on is their word. The problem is that the word of journalists is worthless for many people. That is why I fear that the Ford’s may triumph in this epic battle. They have called bullshit on the press, and so far the only response that The Toronto Star, Globe and Mail, and Gawker have come up with is, “trust us, we wouldn’t lie to you.” Well, I hate to break it to the press, but many people from across the political spectrum believe that the press lies. So unless the media start doing a lot better, the Ford’s will win.

    • Warren says:

      You don’t win any votes by calling anyone “maggots.”

      • Reality.Bites says:

        In Ford Nation you do. The only thing they’ll object to is using an M instead of an F

      • Alex says:

        I don’t think the Ford brothers are looking for more votes. Rather, I suspect that their goal is to solidify their base, which already assumes that the press are full of liars. As for those voters who don’t vote for them, they have essentially said that they don’t care about these people.

        In the 1970s, Pat Buchanan wrote an infamous memo to Richard Nixon in which he recommended that the Republican Party actively seek to split the Old Roosevelt Coalition. The strategy, Buchanan wrote, “(would) cut the Democratic Party and country in half; my view is that we would have far the larger half.” The Ford’s, I believe, are using a comparable strategy. Instead of seeking to unify Toronto, they are actively going to war with one half of the city, on the belief that their slice of the electoral pie will be bigger on voting day.

  13. Ding Ming-Wong says:

    I just love how Rob Ford calls journalists “maggots” and then a few minutes later leaves his Sunday Radio talk show to attend his daughter’s Roman Catholic confirmation! I mean referring to people as “maggots” just before you enter the
    House of God and attend one of Christianity’s most important sacraments really isn’t keeping with Jesus Christ’s teaching
    of “turning the other cheek” and “loving thy neighbour” is it Mayor Ford?

    Ding Ming-Wong

    • tf says:

      If they had any self-awareness, the Ford brothers would recognize that they’re washing their own radio show with the same infested brush.

  14. Jen says:

    What is curious about this whole ‘crack’ fiasco is the lack of appreciation of what these allegations really mean.
    If the allegations are true, the really bad part of the scandal, has nothing to do with the mayor having a substance abuse problem. What is really bad, and something that no one talks about, are the connections between the Fords and organized crime.

    • james Smith says:

      Good point, as you say, this connection is disturbing, even more disturbing to me than the Charbonneau Commission’s revelations. I think the use of the term “Maggots” while distasteful is oddly correct. That is; maggots are the larva that consume filth & corruption and that is exactly what two newspapers & a website have uncovered.

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